


Hope Where Pathways End

by Neelh



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (mostly autistic mabel with a bit of ford), Anxiety, Autistic Pines Family, Filk, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8522458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: It's hard, not having your entire family with you during the apocalypse. It's hard, but the banjo understands.(or, old man mcgucket and young lady pines filk night)





	

**Author's Note:**

> cw for a meltdown
> 
> this is for you if you are going to be affected negatively by some current events. i love you

Mabel had never really realised how big the Mystery Shack was until now.

It was creaky, yes, and old and cold, obviously, but it had never really occurred to her as to how big it was before. It had to, she guessed, to be a laboratory-turned-fake-museum, but the entire idea of the Shack being _big_ was just, well, _weird_.

Grunkle Stan had told her to get some sleep before going to his bedroom, but the fact remained that Mabel couldn’t sleep if she tried. Mabeland had basically been one big dream, and though she felt a little woozy leaving it, she’d regained a lot of energy since then and all she could do was wander the house, checking in on everyone else who was sleeping. There was the Multi-Bear lying on the museum’s floor, some gnomes nesting in his fur, and Celestabellebethabelle was hogging every pillow in Soos’s break room or Grunkle Ford’s bedroom, whatever it was now.

In almost every nook and cranny, a person or creature of some kind was comfortably sleeping. Those people had been surviving for however long Mabel was in the bubble for. They _needed_ sleep. They had actually been _doing_ things instead of hiding away like cowards.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? She had hidden instead of fighting. She could have seen through the pretend dream for what it was from the beginning. It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed the eyes that for a moment reminded her of puppets and fear and self-hatred and anger. To be honest, looking back on it now, that might have been why she stayed in the bubble for so long. The eyes were only there for moments, but the rest of the outside world was filled with chaos and pain and those slit pupils constantly.

It doesn’t matter anymore, though. Dipper had convinced her to leave the bubble, and now Mabel was kind of scared of her Meow Wow sweater and all her happy kiddy movie things, and now she was here. Awake. In the middle of the night.

But she was _home_.

Home was weird. Home as a concept was weird. Mabel couldn’t entirely put it into words but it was there, and it was warm, and it felt nice. Even if it wasn’t warm-warm, like toast and freshly baked bread, it was still warm like a fuzzy sweater around her internal organs. Which was kind of a gross idea. Home was where her family and friends were, though, and where she made memories with them and made new ones all the time and where everything felt alright.

Even during the apocalypse, this was home. It was kind of a shakier definition than the one Mabel had just given herself, because it was only really where her friends and family were, but some of her family were trapped outside. Grunkle Ford wasn’t home. Grunkle Ford was somewhere that Mabel didn’t know.

Her home couldn’t be home, because Grunkle Ford wasn’t there.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep last year, when Dipper had gone to a summer camp for a week without her, because all she could think about was all the ways that he could come home in a body bag. Mabel had thought that she’d gotten over that when Dipper came home in one piece and hugged her and she could feel his chest rise and fall as he breathed and his heart going _bu-bum bu-bum bu-bum_ through his ribcage.

Grunkle Ford wouldn’t even get a coffin. He’d probably just get torn to pieces by Bill’s demon friends, or-

No. Grunkle Ford was tough. Grunkle Ford survived the multiverse-

Grunkle Ford cried when he thought nobody could hear him, and his breathing was never really regular-

Mabel began to shake her hands, going _swish-swish-swish-swish_ like she was shaking water from them. Her sleeves covered her palms but left her fingers bare and kind of cold, because temperature didn’t feel real anywhere anymore and the meagre central heating that Grunkle Stan did have was probably bwoofped out because electricity is weird and she’s finding it hard to breath properly, and all of her breath is coming out in a throaty noise like a vacuum cleaner.

And that nasal voice is talking, going through random words softly and each word feels like her brain is being stabbed by a knitting needle, and not even a plastic or a wooden one, but a really pointy metal one and her _swish-swish_ hands are helping to stop it from going all _blegh_ all over the place, but it’s just really difficult because sweater feels too much and floor feels too much and air feels too little and everything is so bad-weird and she can barely _think_!

“Marble… Ma-Mabel!” the voice says, and his Southern accent is…

Wait. Southern accent? Bill’s accent was a different kind of annoying from a plain old Southern accent.

She looks up through blurry eyes and sees a big fluffy white cloud with arms and legs and a really big nose.

“Ol’ M… McGucket?” Mabel kind of said. It was more of a mumble, to be honest, but mumbles were probably actual speaking, like getting up in the morning. For all Mabel knew, she’d just made a very long whining noise.

“Young Lady Pines!” he replied.

She blinked a bit, and yeah, that was definitely Old Man McGucket. Mabel breathed in. _Definitely_ definitely Old Man McGucket. He smelt _really_ weird.

“Eh heh, yeah, that’s… That’s me,” smiled Mabel, scratching the back of her neck where the really big spine bone bit was. “Me… Yeah… Young Lady Pines… I guess…”

“Well, I’m no expert at people-readin’, but it looks to me like you’re not feelin’ all that good!” said Old Man McGucket.

That was the good thing about that guy. He always smelt the same kind of weird, and he always spoke in the same volume and voice and tone and she always knew what to expect from him.

“Yeah,” Mabel shrugged. “I’m… I kind of just got out of a bubble made up of my favourite parts of my imagination that just got turned into bugs and started trying to kill me and also Grunkle Ford isn’t here and I’m scared that he’s dead, but it’s no biggie! I’ll be fine!”

Old Man McGucket squinted, and for a moment Mabel thought that he might just do that thing where he shrugs it off and goes about his daily life, but the apocalypse changing everything might have rubbed off on him, because he continued squinting and asked, “Are you sure?”

Mabel froze, her vacuum cleaner noise returning even louder than before. It made her lips quiver and go tingly and weird and she couldn’t stand it but she couldn’t do anything else because her brain was just saying _make the noise_ and Mabel was saying _that sounds like a dumb idea i don’t want to do that_ and her brain was saying _do do do do do do_ and though it seemed like a terrible argument it was actually rather sound logic or whatever, and Dipper’s voice is kind of going at her even though he’s not there and she can’t hear McGucket and suddenly there is pressure around her body.

It’s kind of a hug from behind, and McGucket’s hands are placed against her wrists that are against her chest in a kind of dinosaur raptor-rexy thing that feels nice, and he’s humming a vaguely familiar song with his chin resting on her head and rocking backwards and forwards like Sweatertown but bigger and warmer and smellier.

Yeah, this is pretty nice.

Finally, words begin to form in Old Man McGucket’s voice, and he can’t carry a tune or anything but it’s still calming, and hearing about an eagle landing that Mabel is pretty sure is metaphorical or at the very least not a proper bird is just kind of…

Didn’t Grunkle Ford sing this in the shower?

And no, time will not drive her down to dust again, even though she didn’t really understand it, and when McGucket finished, Mabel pushed his arms away to hug him properly, and she could lift him off the floor really easily. He… Really needed to do something about that, probably. Or not, because Mabel needed proof that she was super-awesome-uber-mega-muscly! Well, she didn’t, but it was nice to have validation.

“How did you know that would help?” she asked, headbutting his formless chin through his beard, but gently. Not attack headbutt. Headbutt-huggy thing.

Old Man McGucket laughed. “Well, you were doin’ things I think I remember Ford doin’, and I kind of reacted on automatic-whatsit! Muscle memory! We used to really like those old filk songs! I… I think I still do!”

Mabel blinked. “What’s filk?”

“Science fiction and fantasy music, I think,” McGucket said, scratching his beard and breaking the hug. “I remember a big room with people and playin’ my banjo while Ford sang, and other people sang too.”

His fingers twitched in peculiar patterns for a moment as his white brows furrowed.

“Will you play me some?” Mabel asked, squidging her cheeks together. Grunkle Ford sang those songs, and it would be nice to hear them when she didn’t need to pee and Ford was hogging the bathroom.

Old Man McGucket’s face brightened as he smiled; chipped and broken teeth bared in a genuinely happy grin. “Of course! Let me find my banjo!”

 

-

 

Old Man McGucket sat on the living room floor with Mabel, the two of them facing each other. He plucked on the banjo strings gently, before finally strumming a chord and breathing in.

In his croaky old voice, he began to sing.

 

“ _What is courage now?_

_Is it just to go until we're done?_

_Men may call us heroes when_

_They can say we've won,_

_But if we should fail, how then?_

_What is courage now?_ ”

 

The words fell off his tongue like an old tap being turned and releasing water. He stuttered and stumbled over syllables, but as time went on, he fell into a rhythm that flowed like a steady river.

In no way whatsoever did his voice sound pretty or tuneful, but Mabel was never one for caring about how a song sounded. It was about how it felt, and how it made people feel, and how the singer felt and all of those emotions bundled up together! And Old Man McGucket felt younger, somehow, and older than ever at the same time.

Mabel hummed along once she got the tune, but the words kept on changing between the mountains and stars and rivers and _hope_.

The other song was about hope too. Mabel was starting to notice a theme.

As the last note rang out, Mabel asked, “Why are both of those songs about hope? Usually songs are about romance or feeling sad, or both!”

McGucket’s lips drew into a thoughtful pout for a little bit before he said, “Well, I suppose that it’s because there’s a lot of sadness in the world anyway, all th’ time. And all of those science shows that me and Ford used to watch, they were about the future and humans all gettin’ along together and bein’ friends with aliens. It’s probably just wishful thinkin’, but I guess we’ll always have a chance to do good!”

Mabel stared at the banjo. Eye contact would feel weird-bad right now, and people in general could be kind of eghlly to be around, but it was nice right now and she didn’t want to get all overwhelmed.

“Do you think we’ll beat Bill?” she asked quietly.

Old Man McGucket patted the floor in front of Mabel, not touching her but doing an emotion-hug instead of a physical one. Like a metaphor hug!

“Of course,” he smiled. “I have a plan involvin’ at least one giant robot! And we’re gonna get Ford back, too. He’s stronger than people tend to think. He can wait for us. I trust him t’ do that.”

Mabel smiled back. “Then, do you think you can sing one more song?”

Fiddleford laughed. “Of course, Young Lady Pines!”

The house awoke at some vague time later to the sound of two voices singing together, sloppy and untuned but full of love and happiness and joy and, greatest of all, hope.

**Author's Note:**

> the two songs used are hope eyrie and fellowship going south, both by leslie fish!!! i was going to put few days in there as well but it's... not as positive...


End file.
